Did You Know?

Super Bowl

While Super Bowl LI, which was played at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, on Feb. 5, 2017, featured a thrilling come-from-behind victory by the New England Patriots over the Atlanta Falcons, the very first Super Bowl, played on Jan. 15, 1967, provided no such intrigue. A 35-10 victory by the Green Bay Packers over the Kansas City Chiefs, the AFL-NFL World Championship Game (the game would only retroactively be known as ‘Super Bowl I’) was played at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles. The game was tightly played in the first half, with Green Bay holding a 14-10 lead at halftime. But the Packers, coached by legendary head coach Vince Lombardi, pulled away in the third quarter, scoring two touchdowns, while ultimately holding the Chiefs scoreless in the second half. The game was played in front of slightly less than 62,000 people (roughly 33,000 seats went unsold), and estimates suggest as many as 75 million American viewers watched the game on television. Nielsen reported that more than 111 million Americans watched Super Bowl LI in 2017, and estimates suggest roughly 50 million more people watched the game across the globe. Television ads might not have garnered the attention or generated as much talk around the office water cooler in 1967 as they do today, and they also did not cost nearly as much, either. The cost of a 30-second commercial during the first Super Bowl in 1967 cost advertisers $42,000 while such an ad cost advertisers just over $5 million in 2017.